Even if I can comprehend the statement, I can’t be sure that you’re using it apropriately.
They should really just use 12:01 or 11:59 universally to ensure that there is no confusion.
um… I don’t know what to say, except a wholeheartedly agree.
and one more thing… according to the web spellchecker the word is “wholeheartedly” not “whole heartedly.” I did not know that.
I’m tempted to inform the video store that the (non-professionally made) sign for hours implies that they’re only open 2 hours on Saturdays: 10am to 12pm. Do you suppose they’d be grateful that after a year someone informed them of their error?
My general experience with things like that is that you’ll receive one of three responses:
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No, we mean 12 at night. PM means night. (And they’ll refuse to listen to reason).
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It’s the same thing either way. (And they’ll refuse to listen to reason).
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So? (And they’ll refuse to listen to reason).
I agree but for different reasons. 12am usually just means “Before the guy gets in the next day.” So I think you should be able to work until 1 or 2am, because your stuff will get picked up same time as everyone else. Up to you how far you want to push it, just be ready to deal with the penalty.
I did have an instructor (I’m a TA) who would give a deadline of “before sugar and spice wakes up and checks her email”. I loved it. No bickering, who’s to say when I check my email?
This is why, in contracts, I always write 12 midnight or 12 noon to avoid any AM/PM confusion (although, honestly, I can’t think of an example in real life where I’ve seen 12 p.m. mean “midnight” or 12 a.m. mean “noon.”) I suppose I could lose the redundancy as simply write “midnight” and “noon,” though, but it looks better to me when I write “Hours: 9 a.m. to 12 midnight.”
I do the same. Since AM means ‘before noon’ and PM means ‘after noon’, neither AM nor PM can logically be used for noon, or for midnight.
I’ve never understood why there is so much confusion here. The :00 time is the same as any other time that hour. When it’s dark outside, 12:02 is in the morning. 12:01 is also in the morning. Therefore, 12:00 is also in the morning. When the hour rolls over, so does the half-day. Why would anyone think that 12:00 is in a different half than 12:01?
I do the same thing. If I’m in a situation where I can’t put down “12 Noon” or “12 Midnight” - for example on dropdown menus - I’ll pick “12:01 AM” to indicate midnight. Just to avoid any possible confusion.
I should elaborate: the confusion I’ve got a problem with is which day, not “when the sun is up or down”
If something starts “effective at 12AM on July 15” the correct interpretation is that it starts in 35 minutes (or 25 minutes ago for you east coasters, or longer ago for those farther east)
but I always double check with someone on that because they may have used the phrase 12 AM to mean, in this example, tomorrow night…
It would get even more prone to confusion if you started saying “12 midnight on July 15” 
Yeah, I dislike having to ask, “Do you mean the midnight that begins July 15, or the midnight that ends July 15?”.
I had a professor in college who delighted in being anal retentive, and instead of 12PM, he insisted on writing 12M, since 12 noon is the meridiem, it’s not post- or ante-meridiem.
I actually had this come up as an issue in a criminal case one time. I had a defendant who had gotten back with his ex, but they forgot to get the protective order she had on him lifted. One night they get into an argument and she calls the cops on him, and when they come out they have to arrest him on the protective order (under Texas law, they have no option to warn him to leave, they have to arrest him for misdemeanor violation of a protective order). The order was set to expire on 12 pm that very day. See where I’m going with this? There’s no indication as to whether 12 pm had already passed or was about to pass. Actually, there’s really no 12 pm at all. Most state agencies realize this; e.g. DPS won’t give you an occupational license that begins or ends at 12 pm or 12 am, but the judge who signed this order didn’t.
I set it for a bench trial (I knew the judge flew a lot and would probably know why flights always leave at 11:59 pm or 12:01 pm), and the DA was mystified - as far as he could tell, the guy was obviously guilty, but he figured I must have something up my sleeve. The day before trial he offered a sweetheart deal my guy didn’t think he could pass up, so we pleaded the case. I explained to the DA what my trial strategy was afterwards, and he was a little confused: “but, it has to be one or the other, doesn’t it?” Nope. I was a little disappointed, I was really looking forward on cross-examining the officer on exactly when 12 pm was.
I thought about it about a month ago and asked the judge how she probably would have ruled, and she said she probably wouldn’t have found the state’s case proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Should have went for it, but everybody left happy, I suppose. 
I had this very argument with someone at work the other day. I tried to point out that there’s really no such time as 12:00 am/pm. It’s 12 midnight or 12 noon. 12:01 am exists and makes sense but I’m sick of having to clarify whether a child is going to be fasting from midnight for a procedure or whether he can eat breakfast and an early lunch and then by NBM for an afternoon procedure.
Sending supporting thoughts to you during these very trying times.
Things are so much easier when you use the 24-hour clock.
00:00, absolutely no ambiguity.
All my digital clocks run on 24-hour, and there is no issue at all in double-thinking which hour it is - takes about a day of practice to know that 19:00 is 7pm.
Year by year it subtly trickles further into usage in the UK, and I get more and more pleased that it does.
Question: how do you say 19:00? I know in the military they would call it nineteen-hundred (or nineteen-hundred hours?) but I’ve never heard someone say it in a civilian context. Would you ever say nineteen o’clock or do you still say nineteen hundred?
Oh, and also what about 00:00? Zero-zero? Zero o’clock? Zero hours? Just plain “zero”?
I think in non-English-speaking countries that use it, they say the whole number, but here in the UK (and Ireland too) pretty much everyone can doublethink: we would say “meet you at 9 this evening” but may write “21.00” in an email. Or read a train timetable and see that the train leaves at 13.52 but say “the train leaves at one fifty-two this afternoon”.
And 00:00 is still midnight or “twelve o’clock at night”.
In my line of work (buying media) we deal a lot with times. We use 12m to denote 12 midnight and 12n to denote 12 Noon. Works like a charm.
This is what the OP is talking about, and I’m kind of confused at all the people talking about 12 am versus 12 pm.
I’ve seen times given for shows or other events at, say, 12 am Thursday, and I don’t know whether I should stay up Wednesday night or stay up Thursday night.